Box of Stuff

When I was little, I had a "game" box that I kept neat things in: stickers, neat shells (small ones), odd game pieces, a multicolored crayon that I never used because I didn't want to waste it. I mostly used the objects in this box to design games around; of course, one important rule in all of these games was that I could always add new rules, and therefore always win.

I'm moving to a new apartment this week, and as such everything in my apartment is finding its way into boxes. This afternoon, I went through the Box of Stuff that has been sitting relatively ignored in the corner of my bedroom since I moved here two years ago. It's called the Box of Stuff, by the way, because everything in it originally came from the Drawer of Stuff back when I was living in a dorm. I figured a Box of Stuff I have barely touched in two years is probably full of stuff that can happily make its way to the trashcan, but boy was I wrong. This Box is like a treasure trove.

I found seven boxes of matches, two boxes of sparklers, several candles (one of which smelled kind of funky), and a small thing of green glitter I bought for about ten cents in Taiwan (I think). There was also a dozen matchbox cars and a mostly used tube of super glue, from back when I spent hours trying to glue matchbox cars to the ceiling of my dorm room freshman year—turns out getting super glue to stay where you want it on wheels that turn, and then getting the wheels to stay where you want them, is more difficult than it had seemed at first thought, and so the plan of having a city on my ceiling never really panned out. The Box of Stuff also revealed a box of 100 poker chips, five six-sided dice (in an unopened box), about eight decks of cards including one unopened one with the kings and queens of England on it from when I visited the UK when I was ten. I was delighted to find a can of silly string, a leftover remnant of the first year I ran HMMT and got to pick out all of the prizes; there was also an HMMT frisbee. There was also a leaf of Lothlorien (a clasp like the ones in the movies), a long roll of Caution tape (borrowed from some place), a long roll of CAUTION INFINITE BUFFET (caution) tape, a thing of Magic Grow Safari Animals, an Exacto knife, a surprisingly large collection of paint (about 10 different colors, also from when I was attacking the ceiling and door of my freshman dorm room). I found (and threw away) two large road reflectors (one yellow and one blue); these were from when my dad was going through a phase of collecting road reflectors of all colors and giving them to friends. (My mother claims he wanted to give them to all of this friends so that they could each bring one to his funeral, but since he's stopped, it must mean he thinks he isn't going to die, or else he's gotten distracted by something else shiny.) The Box further revealed a large collection of Mardi Gras beads, several pocket tools with belt holsters, twine (off-white, yellow, and neon orange), and a box of the most excellent colored chalk you can imagine.

Hopefully my next generation of treasure collecting won't be in the form of Horcruxes... What's in your box of stuff?